Page 45 of Stolen Threadwitch Bride
Kneeling at my feet, he looked at me from below dark lashes. If he were a human, I’d have guessed he was a similar age to me, perhaps a little older. As a fae he could’ve been centuries old for all I knew. But right now, looking up at me with no mockery, no art to his expression, just an openness I hadn’t seen before… he seemed so young. Innocent, almost.
“To serve is an honour.” He inclined his head, a gesture too close to bowing for my liking.
I squirmed in my seat. I wasn’t worthy of being bowed to or served or any such honour.
“Eat up.” Rising, he flashed me a grin, none of that innocence left. “You’re going to need your energy for this afternoon. I’m teaching you to ride.”
I stuffed a slice of honeyed pork in my mouth to stifle a groan. Riding meant letting some creature have control so it could run off with me. Although… I’d let Ly have control on the way here… and technically, hehadrun off with me. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. My heart lurched at the thought.
“You can huff all you like,” he went on, “but I’m not going to sit in a carriage with you like you’re a child, and I can’t have you always sitting in front of me whenever we need to ride somewhere.” He raised an eyebrow. “However pleasant that might be.”
Damn him, but he knew how to distract me. His flirtation didn’t mean anything—he joked and laughed with everyone else at meals, just as he did with me—but it was enough to push worries about riding from my mind.
* * *
The distraction continuedwith conversation and food. Age fresh on my mind, I asked and found out that he was twenty-eight years old—an adult by fae reckoning but still young. His parents had died not long after he’d come of age, but he changed the subject after that, and I couldn’t bear to prod the sorrow so obvious in his stiff movements.
Instead, since we were on good terms and I felt I could trust his answer, I asked about Annon. He knew nothing about her disappearance, but conceded it could be a fae’s doing. For all I knew, she might have returned at the next market day, not missing at all. Still, fears for her snagged in my mind almost as often as thoughts of Rose.
After lunch, he helped me mount the hind and taught me how to sit correctly, how to roll with her gait, and the call to ask her to halt. By the end of the session, my back ached but it wasn’t as bad as it had been those first days of our journey.
A hot bath filled with bubbles and herbs Sylvie had left eased the pain. That evening, I ate with everyone and joined in as they spoke about their days. Hil seemed impressed that I was learning to ride—she never had—and Sylvie suggested we could go out together once I was confident. Sallis and Hobb praised my bravery, considering how large the deer were compared to my “minuteness” as they put it. I couldn’t help but laugh at that description. Later, Ly read to me in the workshop and escorted me to my room sometime past midnight.
That became a kind of routine. I sewed all morning, working on Ly’s suit as well as little gifts for the others. Hobb’s was easy to decide on—a kerchief that meant their antlers would never tangle in branches. Sallis had complained they could never get the dirt out of their claws, so I embroidered a cloth that would clean their hands in an instant. For Hil, a rose fashioned from silk that clipped in her hair and would keep flour off it. For Sylvie, I made a bag for collecting herbs and flowers that would keep their scents fresh forever.
Boyd was another matter. He revealed no frustration I could help with… other than by making myself disappear.
In the afternoon, I rode, and after dinner, Ly sat with me. Between the stories, he gave me the space and the quiet to speak. Of small things, silly things, at first, but over time it expanded to life in Briarbridge, tales of Mama, Papa, and Rose.
With halting words, I even told him about the day Rose and I had become friends. I was five and a group of children had cornered me. When I didn’t answer their questions about where I was from, what I was doing there, why I looked the way I did, someone picked up a stone. More stones appeared in their little hands, and I curled in a ball, waiting for the first one to land.
I waited and waited, pulse roaring in my ears so loud I couldn’t hear their taunts anymore. But nothing hit me.
I flinched at the touch when it came, but it wasn’t a stone—it was a gentle hand. And when my gaze followed the pale arm, I found it belonged to a strawberry blond girl. Her knuckles were scuffed, and a trickle of blood ran from her hairline.
That was the first day Rose saved me, and she’d been doing it ever since.
Ly smiled at the story and said he’d like to meet Rose some day. That only made my heart sore.
But our conversations wore on. He would ask me about myself and let me know little snippets about him and his family. As I’d suspected, his mother had told him that my kind were “mere humans.” It sounded like it had come from ignorance.
He answered my questions about the Dusk and Dawn Courts, though I still struggled to understand how it worked. When the sun set, the Day King fell into an enchanted sleep and the Night Queen woke. For the hours of darkness and dusk, she ruled and her word was law. But with the rising sun, she fell into her own enchanted sleep, and the Day King rose and ruled.
I’d been riding for a couple of weeks when Sylvie took me towards the edges of the estate. She rode a stag almost as large as Ly’s—she was so tall and willowy, her feet would’ve been close to the ground if she’d ridden my hind.
The sun was warm on my back, not yet too hot, but definitely moving towards Calan Mai and the shift from spring to summer. Our deer walked, ears pricked, hooves rustling through long grass.
“What I can’t understand about the King and Queen,” I said as Sylvie turned us left, “is how they coordinate. If she sleeps all day and he all night, how do they talk?”
“They don’t.” Her streaked hair, like woodgrain, gleamed in the sun as she turned to me with a grin. “They’re only both awake during an eclipse. The rest of the time”—she shrugged—“well, they have to leave messages for each other or just trust that the other one isn’t going to do anything too detrimental. For the most part, the council helps. And, of course, they each have their own spies and courtiers and families loyal to their courts who keep their interests awake even when they are not.” She cocked her head, eyebrows rising. “It’s worked for thousands of years… mostly.”
I snorted and went to ask whatmostlymeant, since it sounded like a story, but as we turned, the path crested a hill and below a great lake glistened in the afternoon sun, stealing my breath.
Sylvie drew her stag to a half beside me. “Do you think you can trot all the way down? Or do you want to try going a bit faster?”
In answer, I clicked my tongue three times, loosened the reins, and my hind sprang into a gallop. The wind swept the hair from my face as her long limbs stretched out beneath us. Sylvie’s stag leapt a heartbeat later and together their hooves thundered upon the ground.
It wasn’t out of control, it was… free.
